Rambutan Fair
The annual August fair celebrates the delicious fruit,
first planted in Surat Thani during 1926. Highlights
include floats adorned with rambutans and other fruits,
exhibitions of local products and ornamental plants,
and demonstrations by specially trained monkeys who
harvest coconuts.
Chak Phra Festival
Surat Thani celebrates the official end of the annual
3-month Buddhist Rains Retreat (Ok Phansa) in mid-October
with the Chak Phra Festival (literally 'the procession
of hauling the Buddha image’). The tradition stems
from the belief that the Buddha ascended to Heaven
during Phansa to preach to his mother. The festival
marks the Buddha's return to Earth, and is an occasion
for religious merit-making and general celebrations.
Local people organise dazzling land and waterborne
processions of revered Buddha images (to symbolise
the Buddha's return to Earth) and boat races on the
Tapi River where long boats, manned by up to 50 oarsmen,
are ebulliently raced. Religious devotion, spectacle
and merriment combine to make Surat Thani's Chak Phra
Festival a memorable annual event.
